Shortly after the November election, I wrote a piece here
titled, “McCain
Beats Romney!” The article focused on initial reports showing
that Mitt Romney received fewer votes in 2012 than John McCain
received in 2008. That utterly depressing observation shocked
conservatives.
How many fewer votes? It looked like Romney got 2-3 million less
votes than McCain. I wrote at the time: “Additional votes are still
coming in, but, as of the time of my writing, Romney received
around 57.8 million votes in 2012. In 2008, John McCain received
59.9 million. Romney got over 2 million less votes than
McCain.”
More votes remained out there. Nonetheless, when the final count
was tallied, I figured that Romney would still receive fewer votes
than McCain.
Well, the final count is alas approaching, chronicled by the
2012 National Popular Vote Tracker, maintained by David
Wasserman. And it has a rare flicker of good news for Mitt Romney:
He has surpassed John McCain’s 2008 vote total.
The latest near-final tally has Romney with 60.6 million votes,
which is higher than McCain’s 59.9 million votes. That’s the good
news. The bad news: It’s not a lot higher than McCain’s total, and
certainly not high enough to have overtaken Barack Obama. In fact,
Romney’s total is only about 1 percent higher than McCain’s.
Who among us would have predicted that? Republicans expected far
more votes for Mitt Romney in 2012 than McCain got in 2008. Sorry,
didn’t happen.
So, Mitt Romney beats John McCain, but he didn’t beat Barack
Obama.
But before
liberals pound their chests and celebrate a spectacular
victory, there’s additional interesting data from the near-final
vote tally. It relates not to Romney and McCain but to Barack Obama
and George W. Bush — the two most recent presidents to be re-elected.
Consider these striking numbers:
Barack Obama was re-elected with a little under 51 percent of
the vote, similar to George W. Bush in his re-election. They both
round up to 51 percent. Bush was re-elected with
50.7 percent of the vote. Obama’s final tally remains in flux.
A week-and-a-half ago, it was 50.7 percent. The latest is 50.9
percent. It could go up slightly or down slightly, but not by
much.
In effect, Obama and Bush had near-equal re-election
percentages, though Obama got more popular and Electoral College
votes than Bush. But before liberals dub that a victory for Obama,
they should consider more data:
Barack Obama is the first president to be re-elected with fewer
popular votes and fewer Electoral College votes. He got 4.2 million
less votes in 2012 than in 2008. Obama also significantly decreased
his margin of victory, shifting from a 7.3-percent margin in 2008
to a 3.6-percent margin in 2012.
To the contrary, George W. Bush gained a staggering 11.6 million
more total votes in 2004 than he had in 2000. Bush also increased
his percent-margin from minus 0.5 percent in 2000 to plus 2.4
percent in 2004.
And though Obama’s Electoral College victory in his re-election
was larger than Bush’s, it still decreased.
Bush’s re-election also included his party retaining Congress.
In fact, Republicans in 2004 picked up seats in both the House and
the Senate, with sizable majorities in both. Obama was unable to
come anywhere near that — quite the contrary. In 2012, Democrats
retained the Senate but Republicans continued their huge margin in
the House.
And there’s more: Bush was re-elected with a larger number of
states, winning 30 in 2000 (plus 10) and 31 in 2004 (plus 12).
Obama lost states, going from 28 in 2008 (plus 6) to 26 in 2012
(plus 2), which is a bare majority. And should we even mention
counties? The county map under Bush was a sea of red, and it
remained a sea of red under Obama.
For Obama and liberals, this isn’t much to brag about, and
hardly a sweeping mandate. Overall, it is difficult to claim that
Barack Obama’s re-election is much more decisive than George W.
Bush’s. If liberals didn’t see a mandate for Bush in 2004, they
certainly shouldn’t be heralding one for Obama in 2012.
In terms of raw numbers, this was not a huge victory for Barack
Obama — a fact that ought to give Republicans some hope for 2016,
assuming they can turn out notably more people in 2016 than they
did in 2012 and
2008.
Unfortunately for Republicans, it was just enough of a victory
for Barack Obama to continue his “fundamental
transformation” of this country.
